Younes Namli flashes in Rapids 1–1 draw with first-place Sporting Kansas City

COMMERCE CITY — When the Rapids signed Younes Nam­li this win­ter it was for a very spe­cif­ic rea­son. Col­orado want­ed their des­ig­nat­ed play­er to take over the game from the mid­field and cre­ate attack­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with pos­ses­sion and speed.

On Sat­ur­day night, Nam­li flashed that bril­liance, set­ting up Cole Bas­sett on the Rapids lone goal in their 1–1 draw with Sport­ing Kansas City.

Tak­ing the ball at mid­field near the left touch­line Nam­li streaked into the attack­ing third and crossed to the top of the box where he laid a pass across the net mouth. Diego Rubio dum­mied and con­tin­ued his run. It was a good deci­sion as a streak­ing Bas­sett came down the weak side to ham­mer the ball into the top of the net.

“The team had been ing Younes for a long time,” head coach Robin Fras­er said. “If he beats that first per­son then he’s able to find pass­es on the move which allows the team to real­ly start to build some speed into the attack. He’s made us quite dangerous.”

It was all the Rapids could muster, but their defense held con­sid­er­ing first-place Sport­ing led the league in goals com­ing into the match.

A 29th minute rush up the field from Sport­ing was led by a blis­ter­ing run from Ger­so Fer­nan­des, he pushed towards the net then left it for Alan Puli­do. The striker’s shot from the top of the block was beau­ti­ful­ly stopped by Rapids’ left-back Kee­gan Rosen­ber­ry. The attack was one of sev­en shots by SKC in a first half dom­i­nat­ed by the visitors.

Rain and inten­si­ty picked up for the sec­ond half. Col­orado got their first shot on tar­get a few min­utes after the break when Rosen­ber­ry inter­pret­ed the ball and threw it on to Tim Melia. It was the spark for what was to come.

“We’re get­ting bet­ter step by step,” Nam­li said. “The pos­i­tive thing to take away is that we were aggres­sive. That’s where it starts, the last cou­ple of games we haven’t been aggressive.”

It was the 57th minute when Nam­li took the account into his feet with his sparkling run. It was Basset’s, the local 19-year-old’s, first goal of the year and fourth of his MLS career.

The game changed after the goal with a few subs being made on both sides. The Rapids got two quick chances but didn’t make any­thing of them. Sport­ing took advan­tage in the 67th minute when a failed clear­ance on a cor­ner kick found the foot of Gian­lu­ca Busio 26 yards out. Busio lev­eled the count at 1–1.

After a few min­utes of the match being all Kansas City, includ­ing the goal, Gadi Kin­da picked up a sec­ond yel­low card and was eject­ed from the match in the 78th minute. This left his team with 10 play­ers to fin­ish the match and gave the Rapids a chance at the winner.

In the 80th minute, Nam­li sent in a ball from far away on the right-wing but the ball laid per­fect­ly for Jonathan Lewis on the far side. Lewis con­nect­ed but just mishit the ball, nail­ing the out­side of the cage. That would be the best Rapids chance to win it.

“We could have cre­at­ed a cou­ple of more chances today but the last cou­ple of games too we were get­ting a lot going in the box,” Nam­li said. “It’s just about exe­cut­ing. This is not our top lev­el, we have a lot of talent.”

RED DEAD (NO) REDEMPTION: When these two clubs matched up in MLS is Back Tour­na­ment the Rapids were shown two red cards in the sec­ond half. Even down to 9‑men Col­orado equal­ized the game but even­tu­al­ly suc­cumbed to Sporting’s efforts. Unlike Kansas City and the match in Flori­da, the Rapids were not able to take advan­tage of a short­hand­ed team.

BIG PICTURE: The Rapids have 16 reg­u­lar-sea­son games to go. Hov­er­ing on the cut line they’ll have sev­en home games and nine road games to go down the stretch. The draw on Sat­ur­day keeps them in the pic­ture for the West­ern Conference’s final play­off spot.

UP NEXT: The Rapids will be in San Jose next Sat­ur­day to take on the Earth­quakes. That match will be the first of four in 12 days.

(Vis­it­ed 1 times, 1 vis­its today)



Tags: design TT Mod­ell­bahn TT H0 N schal­ten mod­elleisen­bahn bahn spiele­max preise 

Ein Reichsmarschall von Adolf Hitler hatte auch Märklin Modelleisenbahn Modelle > read more

Schreibe einen Kommentar